(Alice Coachman - the 1st African American women to win an Olympic gold medal: Photo courtesy of www.afrosportshall.com).

While perusing the Internet for stories related to Latin Heritage month, I came across a recent report by the Women's Sports Foundation.  The study focused on money, race, and gender in sports.  Though I was looking for something specifically geared toward Latina athletes, I couldn't help but to be drawn to the research on African-American female athletes.  (I'll be covering more on Latin Heritage month this week).

While more African-American female athletes are participating in collegiate sports, they are segregated into two main sports; basketball and track & field.  No surprise there, ya girl is one of those statistics.

(Rutgers Women's Baskeball Team at the height of the Imus controversy: Photo courtesy of www.gothamist.com).

The potential drawbacks that arise with these findings concern the following:

African-American female athletes have less access to sports scholarships.  This is of a particular concern especially considering that many AA female athletes rely on athletic scholarships to go to college (again, ya girl fits this description).  With fewer scholarships available, this creates more competition within a given sport.  Unless we start seeing more Serenas and Venuses, then AA female athletes will continue to lack access to an array of scholarship opportunities.  Also, AA female athletes who participate in basketball and/or track arguably do so as a result of "culturing" and/or recognized opportunity. 

For instance, growing up I was more incline to pick up a basketball and put on track shoes than to pick up a tennis racket or put on golf shoes.  Of course, I don't mean to generalize.  My best friend and teammate played tennis in highschool (she's African-American).  However, she, like me, accepted a track & field scholarship.  Perhaps there was more opportunity for her to pursue track & field than to pursue tennis.  Heck, track & field is the reason why I was able to attend the University of Houston and receive an undergraduate degree from one of the top schools in English/Creative Writing.

You get the point.

The Women's Sports Foundation release a report, Gender Equity and the Black Female in Sport, which lays out some more interesting considerations – in addition to my own.  Here they are:

The African-American female is in double jeopardy. She is discriminated against by her gender. She is discriminated against by her race. African-American females represent less than 5% of all high school athletes, less than 10% of all college athletes, less than 2% of all coaches and less than 1% of all college athletics administrators. This data is scanty and old so the situation may be worse.

We also know that the African-American female, like the African-American male, is a victim of sport discrimination and positional stacking within sports. Her participation is restricted to basketball, track and field and the least expensive sports. Within those sports, she is underrepresented in skill/outcome control positions. She is seldom the setter in volleyball or the point guard in basketball.

We know she is almost non-existent in officiating and behind the 8-ball if she coaches because she has few if any assistant coaches and lacks recruiting dollars and other basic financial resources required to be a successful coach.

As a female and an African-American, she, as a sportswoman, has been neglected by the feminist movement and the civil rights movement because sport has been seen by feminists as either frivolous or reflective of a male model that should not be emulated.

I've never before encountered research of this kind.  I've been through the rigors of a graduate Women's Studies program, I've also encountered the challenges as a female athlete, but to actually read about that which I've experienced as a woman-of-color athlete and student makes me even more aware that women-of-color athletes have been under our activist radar.

The Women's Sports Foundation offered some suggestions to address the above concerns.  What are some of your thoughts, and how can these thoughts be turned into positive solutions?